Payback is a Mutha'

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Amiga developer Apex Designs nicks GTA's style for a new GBA game.

By IGN Staff

If there's one group of game developers that we're expecting big things out of for the Game Boy Advance, it's the dedicated and incredibly savvy development teams who have been toiling away on the old Amiga system in Europe for years now. These guys have been known for pulling off the impossible and pushing the technology on meager systems all along, and when they finally start branching out into the real world of computers that can actually be found in stores, they bring their brand of coding done the hard way with them.

Amiga developer Apex Designs announced today that they're bringing their first commercial game (after several shareware titles for the Amiga) to the Game Boy Advance. Titles Payback, the game is a gritty drive through the underworld through a full 3D cityscape. No doubt, the comparisons to Grand Theft Auto are immediate (the Amiga game hit before GTA3, but the designers admit to being heavily influences by the first games in the series.) However, the game apparently took home awards and a bucket-load of praise in the Amiga community, so we're psyched to see if it lives up to its loot on GBA.

As you can see in the screenshots [and newly added video taken from the alpha version running on an emulation toolkit] the game features a detailed 3D engine that's somewhat like (and actually may be in some ways superior to, if you're noticing the dips and elevations of the road) the original top-down GTA games. While the actual car models have not been integrated yet, the developer has been able to eek out fully-textured 3D building and environments, and should feature an advanced physics model for the cars to bring the action to life. [The videos use a cursor in some clips when navagating the town, but no car or character elements have been ported over yet.] The developers also brag to being able to draw a full 240x160 image (many GBA engines use resolutions tricks to draw half the image and then spread the pixels across the small screen), and expect to hit a locked 15 FPS target with a number of effects included (including alpha channel transparency effects for smoke and things of that nature, distortion effects on the water, at least some level of shadowing on the environment, plus a "rotating view" smart cam feature that scales the camera plane in somewhat behind your car from up above while also rotating the gameplay map to a certain degree to give you the feeling that the camera is swooping and zooming right along with you.)

Of course, a killer engine only goes so far before the gameplay has to start kicking butt. In the past, that's been another thing that former Amiga programmers have been known for -- creating sweet engines yet sour games -- so we'll be keeping a very close eye on Apex to see if they're able to break that curse. Already, they have good word behind the original version of the game, and there's some interesting aspects behind the design. The game encourages the kind of madness that made GTA a must play with an experience point system somewhat like an RPG -- you collect points to progress in the game by a number of means, so whether you choose to follow orders from a mob boss or just go on a killing spree, you'll still be making your way towards the finale. There's action both inside and outside of the car (at least, there is in the original game -- not much is known about the gameplay of this version yet, but the Amiga version had the same wild weapons like flamethrowers and shotguns as GTA), and there's apparently enough variety in the missions for it not to feel like a Point A-to-Point B courier game. No word on if the GBA version will carry over the Amiga's multiplayer features.

Check out the media section below for the first screens and videos of the game in action. Keep in mind: the videos are not being run on actual hardware and is very early demonstration footage -- the developer is able to achieve faster speeds (by about 10%) with the actual unit due to ROM management and expects to maintain those higher speeds in the final game. Working beta versions of the game with car models active (the game engine seen in the video currently computes the physics for the elements -- in case you were wondering how much the game might slow down with added gameplay elements) may be ready for previewable, playable ROM in a matter of weeks. We'll keep you updated, but for those curious for information about the game in it's Amiga iteration (if you have the system, check out the available Amiga demo) or for prospective publishers looking to pick up the title), check out the Apex Designs website.

Look for more on Payback soon, hopefully with good news about the game being picked up for publishing so that you can get your hands on it without having to resort to committing a felony.